Shipping giant UPS said Thursday that its charitable foundation will no longer give money to the Boy Scouts of America so long as the group discriminates against gays scouts and leaders. The move comes after an online petition with more than 80,000 signatures called out the company on its support of the BSA.

“We promote an environment of diversity and inclusion. UPS is a company that does the right things for the right reasons,” said UPS spokeswoman Kristen Petrella on Monday. Last year, the UPS Foundation gave more than $85,000 to the Boy Scouts.

“Corporate America gets it better than most: policies that discriminate aren’t simply wrong, they’re bad for business and they’re hurting the scouting community,” said activist Zach Wahls, a nominee for the 2012 Queerties. “You would think that after all the Boy Scouts have lost as a result of this policy, they would understand that.”

On the flip side banking giant Wells Fargo, a major contributor to LGBT causes, is being taken to task for donating office furniture to the Boy Scouts of America’s Cradle of Liberty Council in Philadelphia.

According to a company spokesperson, though, the action was taken on the local level and should be considered in the larger scheme of things.

“Last year, Wells Fargo and its team members provided more than $213.5 million to 19,000 nonprofits across the country,” said James Baum. “Of that amount, more than $2.8 million was donated to nonprofits and other organizations serving the LGBT community.”

Baum added that “$462,000 was provided to local chapters of the Boy Scouts, so for every $1 Wells Fargo or a team member donated to the Scouts, Wells Fargo and Wells Fargo team members donated $6 to organizations that serve the LGBT community.”

Wells Fargo supports a wide array of gay organizations, including HRC, the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, the Point Foundation, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, and Philadelphia’s Equality Forum.

But according to some activists, that doesn’t cut it: “I think they’re evading the issue,” said R. Duane Perry, who led the fight to get Philadelphia to evict the Scouts from a city-owned community center. “Substitute ‘Jews’ or any other minority group for LGBT… Say last year, for every $1 that Wells Fargo gave to organizations that discriminated against Jews, Wells Fargo gave $6 to Jewish organizations. Does that make the discrimination somehow all right?”

What do you think? Is Wells Fargo at fault or are activists like Perry not seeing the forest for the trees?

Yes, I believe that the fact that they gave 6 times more to LGBT causes dosn’t change the fact they still donated to the bigoted Boy scouts. The whole point of a boycott, is to change an organisations position, and so far it’s going the right way and they will probably end up changing their policy. However, when they think that not all big donnors want them to change their position, they will take more time to do so.

Nov 13, 2012 at 12:44 pm · @Reply ·

EdWoody

I can live with them donating furniture. It’s not ideal, but it could have been a lot worse, and at least they can’t turn around and use furniture against us.